342. Robert Southey to Charles Watkin Williams Wynn, [started before and continued on] 15 August [1798]

You will I think be somewhat amused at this copy of a let note from a West Country
Farmers daughter. it is genuine I assure you.

Dear Miss

The energy of the races prompts me to assure you that my request is forbidden, the idea of which I had awkwardly
nourished, notwithstanding my propensity to reserve. Mr T will be there. let me with confidence assure you that him
& brothers will be very happy to meet you & brothers. Us girls cannot go for reasons. the attention of the cows claims our
assistance in the evening.

unalterably yours

is it not admirable?

I have seen myself Bedfordized [1] & it has been a subject of much amusement. Holcrofts [2] likeness is admirably
preserved. I know not what poor Lamb [3] has done to be croaking there. what I think the worst part of the Anti Jacobine abuse is the lumping
together men of such opposite principles. this was stupid. We should have all been welcoming the Director not the
Theophilanthrope. [4] The conductors of the Anti Jacobine will have much {to} answer for in thus
inflaming the xxxxx animosities of this country. they are labouring to produce the deadly hatred of
Irish faction — perhaps to produce the same end. Such an address as you mention might probably be of great use — that I could assist
you in it is less certain. I do not feel myself at all calculated for any thing that requires methodical reasoning — & tho you
& I should agree in the main object of the pamphlet, our opinions are at root different. The old systems of government I think must
fall; but in this country the immediate danger is on the other hand, from an unconstitutional & unlimited power. Burleigh [5] saw how a Parliament might be employed against the people, & Montesquieu [6] prophesied the fall of English Liberty when the
Legislature should become corrupt. you will not agree with me in thinking his prophecy fulfilled.

Violent men there undoubtedly are among the Democrats as they are always called. but is there any one among them whom
the Ministerialists will allow to be moderate? the Anti-Jacobine certainly speaks the sentiments of government.

Heywood’s Hierarchie [7] is a most lamentable poem
but the notes are very amusing. I fancy it is in most old libraries. its ballad matter I do not see any
thing there that promises well for ballads. there are some fine Arabic traditions that would make noble poems. I was about to write one
upon the Garden of Irem. [8]
the city & garden still exist in the desarts invisibly — & one man only has seen them. this is the tradition – & I had made
it the groundwork of what I thought a very fine story. but it seemed too great for a poem of 3 or 400 lines

I do not much like Don Carlos. [9] it is by far the worst of Schillers plays.

Hereford. Aug. 15.

We came here yesterday on a visit, for some fortnight or three weeks. direct at Mr Thomas’s. St Palaye [10] arrived before I left
Bristol — but I had not time to examine it.

[1] i.e. turned into an ass. Southey had been thus
caricatured in James Gillray (1757–1815; DNB), ‘The New Morality’, Anti-Jacobin Review and Magazine, 1
(1798), between 114 and 115. BACK

[2] Thomas Holcroft (1745–1809; DNB) had also been satirised in Gillray’s cartoon. BACK

[3] Charles Lamb and Charles Lloyd had been portrayed by Gillray as frog and toad, though it was
unclear which was which. BACK

[4] Louis Marie de la Revelliere-Lepeaux (1753–1824), leading member of the
five-man Directory that was the supreme executive power in France 1795–1799 and chief promoter of the deist religion of
Theophilanthropy. The verse accompanying the Anti-Jacobin cartoon had concentrated on presenting the radical writers
as enthusiasts for Theophilanthropy. BACK

[5] William Cecil, Lord Burleigh (1521–1598; DNB). His saying that ‘England could never
be undone, unless by parliaments’, was also attributed to another Elizabethan statesman, Francis Bacon (1561–1626;
DNB). BACK

[7] Thomas Heywood (c. 1573–1641; DNB),
The Hierarchie of the Blessed Angels (1635). Despite Southey’s disclaimer, he had based his ballads ‘Donica’ and
‘Rudiger’, in Poems (Bristol, 1797), pp. [161]–186, on material in Heywood’s notes. BACK

[8] In Arabian legend, an earthly paradise, supposedly planted by the
Genii. Southey incorporated the Garden of Irem into Thalaba the Destroyer, 2 vols (London, 1801), I, pp. 7–63. BACK

[10] Jean-Baptiste de la Curne de Sainte-Pelaye (1697–1782), Memoirs of Ancient Chivalry. To which are added, the
Anecdotes of the Times, from the Romance Writers and Historians of those Ages (1774). BACK